Puck Soup - It Starts

Episode Date: April 22, 2025

Sean and Ryan talk about the playoffs series by series, all the coaching vacancies, and more.  

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean McAnne who from The Athletic. And hey folks, it's playoff time. Are we excited? I thought this was the WrestleMania recap show. Yeah, you know, the one guy came out. He hit the other guy in the balls. I think that's about it.

Am I wrong that that happened? Were there any rappers involved? Well, there were two in one of the matches. Great. It didn't watch a second of it. No thanks. Good for you. playoffs the playoffs i feel like last night was the first like classic playoff night i know they

started on saturday but last night felt like the real yeah last no you're you're absolutely right last night was really sick um it's nice to have a two screen experience for the for the two late games let's just put it that i think they ended within like 30 seconds of each other yeah Pretty sick. But why don't we just start with the two series that are already somehow at two games played? Yep. Because there's one series with zero. Has not started yet.

NHL schedules, man. Who knows what goes on. But let's start out with the one that's two nothing. Let's start out with Winnipeg and St. Louis. Yep. Two close ones. Yeah, sort of.

Yeah. Sort of. Like, I guess my big take on game one was, well, St. Louis, you had the, you had some kicks at the can there. You got three past Hellebuck on like 14 shots or whatever it was. Mm-hmm. Good luck doing that again. Yeah. This is a recurring theme in the playoffs, especially in the first round early on,

where you get these games and there's some other series that fall into this category, where the underdog hangs close but loses. Yeah. And you're left going, okay, is that a moral victory because you hung right with them? or did you just hang right with them and give them your best shot and you still couldn't get a win? In which case,

if you're St. Louis, how are you going to beat this team four out of five now? Yeah. You just gave two pretty good games and you came away down to nothing. Oh, I kind of thought they got Little Brother in game one.

Yeah. Last night was pretty even. It's hard to, It's hard to say all the way. I didn't watch all of it because I was flipping back and forth. And, you know, in the first game, it had my undivided attention, right? But everything I saw from last night and basically all the stats just kind of indicate, yeah, I mean, you know, shots were pretty even, shot attempts were pretty even,

but St. Louis just wasn't getting to the middle of the ice. And, you know, like, I saw some people saying, I know, well, maybe Holloway can come back or whatever, and it's like, yeah, okay, and maybe Nick Euler's Rasmus Kupari and Gabe Volardi can come back for the Jets. You know what I mean? Like, it just feels like, yeah, this is a one versus eight matchup is kind of what it. This is a team that needed to win 12 games in a row or whatever it was to get to the eight seed. But I don't know.

Like, game one, I just thought that was all. Jets, and then they got some weird goals past Halebuck, you know? Yeah. Yeah, which you need to do, right? I mean, that's what the game plan looks like, not getting 14 shots, but yeah, we got to get a few weird ones past this guy because there's not enough firepower on the St. Louis team to beat the Vesina winner through skill alone. But I don't know.

Have you seen anything that makes us say, let's wait and see what happens in St. Louis? Because I don't know if you know this. I have this thing that I made up. Okay. That you're not in trouble until you lose a home game. Wow. What do you think of that? I made that up.

I haven't, I'm debuting it right here. Well, I guess my counterpoint to that would be, like you said, they need to win four out of the next five, regardless of venue. That's hard to do. Now, granted, we've seen this Blues team win 12 in a row. But I don't know. I just, it's hard for me to see St. Louis, like you said, having the firepower. I guess, like, you know, everybody likes to say, oh, play off hellabuck. You can't win the big games or whatever.

I don't know. If they need to, what do they have, four goals? It says here on 39 shots. Do you think they can do that again for the next 39? Because that feels like it's really their only, their only path forward here. Bennington could go psycho as well. Yes, maybe they could, but that still is giving you two goals a game. Yep.

And that's not necessarily enough against this Winnipeg team. So. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I, you know, look, I think the Blues, I don't know, like they just, I don't I think they have the personnel to be like an eight seed this year. You know what I mean? Now they have the coach. Now they have a bunch of guys that they can believe in, including Holloway, obviously, like up front.

I just, from what I'm saying, it's the blues defense, which was always their Achilles heel, is getting eaten alive by the, uh, the, the Jets best forwards. and they don't have, like you said, they don't have the firepower to do the same thing on the Jets Blue Line, which I don't think the Jets Blue Line is unbelievable or anything like that. But they can handle what the Blues are throwing at them. That's fair. I mean, let's see here. Yeah, game 1.1 expected goal for the blues in all situations.

and game 2, 1.67. You're not going to win hockey games playing like that. It's that simple. That said, I mean, game one, they had the lead halfway through the third. Mm-hmm. They were tied with a minute left or whatever it was that Connor scored the winner. Like, it was, they were right there. And again, they were there.

It's like, I mean, we'll have this conversation for the Montreal series. Like, do you take, do you look at that and go, we can hang with these guys? Or do you go, that was the opportunity right there? If we're going to win this series, if we're going to get the upset, those are the games that we have to win. Yeah, I think you will be really looking at game one. They just kind of ran you over at the end. You know what I mean? But game two, you were right there and then you chunked it at the very end.

And that will feel like a missed opportunity. But again, like, they can't, Montreal can look at last night's game and say, yeah, we kind of deserve to win that one. Like, you know, we force overtime, you know, all that kind of stuff. This game, you can't say we played well enough to win in game two, I feel like. You play well enough to tie, certainly. But, again, if you're going to, if you're going to come in under two expected goals in a game, that that's just not good enough. they have 39 shots on goal in 120 minutes of hockey. That's bad.

Yep, I'm with you. I don't, I mean, not over, but, hey, let's flip it around. If I'm a Winnipeg fan, I'm feeling pretty good. Not just with the two-nothing lead, but kind of one. Offense looks really, really dynamic. You know, Halibuck hasn't been great, but he has. look like, you know, he's not making you go, oh, oh, here we go again with this, you know, this whole thing.

Yeah, I'd be very worried if it was a repeat of game one and they won again. You know what I mean? The two things you want if you're Winnipeg, nice, quick first round series where, you know, if things, everything looks good to great and they're on track for that. And Colorado and Dallas bash each other's heads in, which. Absolutely. Yeah. So far, kind of so good because I feel like one team's been clearly better in that series,

but Dallas hung on last night. Well, let's talk about that series. Like you say, I watch game one going, oh shit, this could be a sweep. I just didn't feel like Dallas had a lot of answers for what Colorado was doing. Everything they did was the puck was in the back of the net. But last night they bounced back. And they did it on the road, the stars. And I don't know.

I feel like they kind of ran the show last night. Says here, this is according to natural stat trick, 41 scoring chances for the stars. That's a lot. That feels good. I would say do that again. Yeah, high dangers were 17 to 7. Um, I honestly, I really kind of thought like you'd need Jake Ottinger to steal a game for you to really feel like you had a good,

they didn't need them to do that. They, they just, they were the team that like kind of dictated the way the game was played and, you know, I, it's interesting because last night was an extremely high event. And I wonder who that suits over the long run. I kind of think it's not Dallas. Well, I mean, the really simplistic way to look at it is that high event hockey, if both teams have firepower, and Colorado, you're right, probably has a little more right now until Dallas gets healthy,

but that it favors the team with the better goalie. Sure. And I'm not sure who that is, but Ottinger certainly has the better track record. You know, Mackenzie Blackwood has been an interesting story all year, but maybe that's it. Maybe you go, let's turn this into a goalie battle and we'll have our eight-foot-tall All-Star be the difference. I don't know. It just, to me, it feels like Dallas is kind of desperately hanging in until, if they can get

high skin impact, which seems like it might be closer than we thought, but you never know at this time of year. Well, especially because every other game, they're going like, did we say he won't be back until the second round? We didn't mean that. We said he'd be back in game three.

And then, like, game three shows up and they go, game three goes, well, we never said, We never said he'd be back tonight. We always said game. Okay. Well, I don't know that. I don't know what to make of it, you know.

I don't know. I don't know. I mean, they're the higher seed, so they've already lost on home ice, and that's not good to do, per your saying, proprietary trademark, all that. Most credit. So going back to Colorado, I feel like you're not. You're not unhappy to be tied one to one. But just, you know, just because these teams are so close in terms of, like, perception.

I wonder. Like, did you see the quotes after, uh, or the quote from Peter DeBoer after, uh, game one? Where they asked him like, basically like, what, what went wrong? And, or what do you need to do to beat them or whatever? And, uh, he was like, uh, yeah, they're deep. than they were last year and they have blackwood now. So I don't know what to do. It's like, yeah.

Which when you put it that way, man. And also that's, I mean, that's not a terrible quote, but coming from Pete DeBore, a guy who always looks like he just. A real Willie Loman type for sure. He just dropped his ice cream and he's holding the empty cone with like one drip going down the side. Like, I don't know, man. No, I'm with you. I, um, I don't. don't know. I think you've got to feel good if you're Colorado and you're, and you got the one

win on the road already, but you don't want to lose an overtime, you know, even if it's on home ice, you didn't have last change and all that. Eight goals in two games, I think you take that pretty much every time. No reason to panic for, for either team at this point. I still expect Colorado to win the series. Just, I think they're the better team, even when everybody's healthy on both sides, you know. But Robertson and Heiskenen are just such huge absences, you know. So we talked about Heiskenin almost coming back. The Gabriel Landisog stuff was very interesting last night.

Well, it's all pro wrestling, Sean. I say it all the time. You're going to waste his return on a. road game? But I mean, here's the thing. If you're going to do a return, you don't, like, you don't show the guy. You got to, like, you got to get the,

you're not going to get the pop if you've already been teasing the guy, right? Yeah, I mean, if it's me, and I'm, like, I have him, he's walking around, he's got, like, a big bandage around his head, and he's walking with a, with a crutch, and he's coughing a lot, you know? It's like, oh, I don't, can't. Did this guy ever play again? He's got like,

he's got a handkerchief with some blood on it, you know? It's only red food coloring, but you think it'll, it'll look like blood, you know? And it's like, oh, and then,

you know, we're starting game, hey, there's only, there's only 18 guys or 17 guys on the Colorado bench. What's going on? Lights go out. Do do,

do, do do, you know, here he comes. And then, you know, it's a shift where neither team gets out of the neutral zone. But... Sure. So for people who missed it last night, he... First of all, I guess, in practice, he leaves early,

as opposed to sticking around with the extra skaters. So people go, okay, that's interesting. Then he comes out for warm up. And not only does he come out for warm up, but is it Devon Taves is not wearing the A that he normally wears? Right.

Which is, it seems like a clear giveaway. You know, obviously the Landisca's captain, so, you know, he's going to come back. That's, somebody's got to lose a letter. And then at the very last second,

the lineups come in, and he's not in it. Now, I feel like this wasn't, I didn't see this clearly said anywhere. is the going theory that this was all a decoy or is it that he took warm up intending to play and then something wasn't right?

Because that's big difference. Oh, yeah, for sure. Like, I did see some people kind of implying that this was all just Jared Bedner messing with Dallas which, I mean, the level of detail on that is pretty, like, taking David's A away. Yeah, that's true. Just trying to mess with guys is a plus, so to speak.

But if, whereas if he took the warm up and then either had a setback or, you know, maybe it was just a literal game time decision and they decided it was a no-go. But yeah, I have. Hope it wasn't a setback because, like, we all want this guy to get back in so bad. Yeah, I haven't seen any, um, any report. about like what what the deal was there. So all I saw was they activated them off the IR before the game. But like no further update. And, you know, if you're Bednar, why would you, hey, hey, Jared, what was that all about?

You know, let me tell you everything about it. You know, let me, let me, let me reveal all my secrets here. I don't think, I don't think that was ever going to happen. So we're just not going to, we're just not going to. We're just not going to find that out until, again, I wouldn't even have them take warm-ups in game three. I'd have them, oh, who knows? Crazy. Just up in the rafters.

I think that's right. Spotlight. I think that's right. Okay. But yeah, I don't think there's anything to be discouraged about for either team here. This has been a part from feeling more like a blowout than it probably was in game one. I still think Colorado controlled that game, but it wasn't 5-1 bad. You know, maybe it was like 4-2 bad.

And you still don't want to give up four goals to these guys, but that's how it goes. Anything else on this series? Give us seven, man. One way or not. Oh, hell yeah. Figured out hockey gods. Yeah. And maybe by the time they get to 7, Tampa and Florida will be a key.

game three. You never know. Maybe. All right. Let's move on then to the other, the early game from last night, the other early game from last night, I should say. Montreal versus Washington. I thought both teams looked pretty good. Yeah. Neither look great is my point, you know?

They look pretty good. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, this one, it. kind of stands as the opposite of another one that we'll get to in a bit, another series, another game one. Because in this one, I feel like both teams come away feeling pretty good about it. It always feels weird to say that because, of course, it's the playoffs. Every game is so insanely important that you never feel bad if you win,

you never feel great if you lose. But, you know, Montreal, this is exactly what you were picturing. when you think about this team getting into the playoffs, right? Suzuki leading Coughfield scoring the big goal, you know, it looked, hanging right there with the one seed in the conference. And doing it, you know, pulling off a comeback. So, I mean, I say hanging with them,

the first half of the game, it looked like maybe Washington was going to pull away. But Montreal was like, no, not going to happen. we're, you know, if we're supposed to roll over in this series, we miss the memo and we're going to push back. And if you're Washington, it's sort of like, yeah, that's a tough playoff game. And we got to win those. We got to figure out a way to get those tough wins. We know that.

And we just put one in the bank. Again, I don't know if they took Montreal's best shot, but took a pretty good shot and still got the win. obviously it's overtime you know one one bounce goes the other way and the entire script flips and we're talking about watching and blowing a lead and home ice and all of this stuff but it it didn't paper tiger we're saying yeah yeah and you know very cool to see ovech can get the first overtime goal um that's that's obviously one of those stats that gets kicked around a lot uh you'd hear every down then that he had somehow never scored a playoff overtime goal and

Not clutch. It's that simple. Not clutch. There's some good names on that not scoring overtime goal. I got to look that up, but I feel like Gordy Howe definitely, Gordy Howe, I believe, never had an overtime goal ever, including the regular season, which sounds crazy, but then you remember. You don't, they just didn't have overtime.

They didn't invent overtime yet. Yeah. Well, they had it, but, you know, they got rid of it for World War II for refuse. and then for some just forgot to bring it back for 40 years. I feel like Mark Messier never had an overtime goal in the playoffs, maybe a few other guys. He was so good at leading that his team never went to overtime once. He just, yeah, and, you know, he was too busy scoring hat tricks

that included cheap empty-knit goals. But yeah, you know, watching this game last night, again, you have to be encouraged if you're Montreal, You played pretty well. You didn't play, like, great, like I said, either way. Both teams kind of probably feel like they have something extra to give, you know? But there's proof of concept there. We aren't, we're not your typical eight seed.

They're not your typical one seed, however you want to put it. Montreal can feel good about that. but in my opinion, maybe you cover that Ovechkin guy. Yeah, probably good. By the way, I just looked it up, you know what's crazy? You know who never scored an overtime goal in the playoffs? Who? Mario Lemieux.

This dude scored. Well, I guess you're going to make the playoffs a lot or, uh, you know. You know. I guess. Well, I was going to say. When they were winning in the playoffs, it was like 8 to 1. That's right. You either, you're going to play close games in the post.

scoring like a goal of a game in the playoffs and just didn't get the OT. Hey, maybe if he had gotten off his butt before David Volick, we'd be talking about three peats. That's right. I'm with you, man. Not clutch. These guys are just not going to. Doesn't have it.

Should have called up a young Carter Verhegey and been like, what do I do, buddy? How do we do it? And he's like, I won't be born for another six years. Or whatever. I don't know how old Carter Verhege is. There's no way he was born in the 90s, right? Carter Verhegey. He definitely wasn't born in like 91 or whatever.

Oh, no, for sure. I'm just, now I'm wondering how much that feels like, you know, like, you know. Carter Hage is like in his mid-20s, isn't he? Let's find out. We're going to look it up now, folks. Carter Hage was born in 95. Yeah, I'm all right. But this is one of those things where it's like when I watched MASH as a kid,

And granted, it's depicting the Korean War. So that maybe skews it a little bit. But I was like, when did this show come out? Like, 1951. You know what I mean? Like, that show was on contemporaneously with when I was alive. But it just felt like fucking ancient history to me, you know? Yep.

Not like cheers. That felt, you know, vibrant, exciting. You know. Exactly. But yeah, I think, I guess I don't have a ton to say here. like, but you know what, I'll say this, that the Montreal goal where they were just like buzzing, the capitals couldn't get those guys away from their net

for 30 seconds straight it felt like. That was wild, man. Those guys look like dogs out there. And that was like an underrated great goal by Suzuki because it's chaos. Like it was complete chaos. Goal is out of position. Guys are flying around. And the puck winds up on his stick.

95% of NHL players just shoot. You just fire. I mean, it's chaos mode. You know, that's what you do. But instead, he takes like the half second, you know, moves the puck a little bit, just waits for the jerseys to part and buries it. And it's one of those goals where you look and you go, yeah, he scored into an empty net. Big deal.

Well, it actually was a big deal. that was Yeah, that's one of those empty nets where it's like Yeah, but there were Like the goalie wasn't there But there were six other bodies in front of it You know

So yeah, I thought that I thought that was an awesome fucking goal I was having a blast watching that ship All right, let's move on to the one other game From last night It's Edmonton, it's L.A., it's chaos So Amazing, holy fuck

opposite of the Montreal Washington game. I'm terrified if I'm both teams. This game was the worst case scenario for both teams. That's right. Of like Gary Ben is showing up and declaring it a forfeit and the loss for both teams. Like that was, you're watching that if you're a fan of those teams with like your hand over your face and like a little crack between your fingers. That that's. Well, did you see the Drew Doughty quote?

Yes. Yeah. I'm glad we won because it would have sucked to lose that one. That's right, Drew. You got it. Yeah. It was a crazy-ass game. And again, it's happening at exactly the same time as the Colorado Dallas overtime.

Like the big comeback. I'm going to say this. This is maybe going to be a controversial statement regarding this game. Carr McDavid is pretty fucking good. that's that's the scary thing if I'm out like even even more so then you blew the lead yeah you know they they blew for you know they they blew a four goal lead let edmonton tie it up late is that like connor mac david just again was like unstoppable like what sport is this guy playing you've got two of the best checking centers in the league yeah and home ice and

matchups and all of that. And I mean, he is just going around guys like they don't exist. Literally, there is a guy between him and the net on all three of his primary assists. Where it's just like, he, I mean, that first one, the dry sightal goal, he starts it facing away from the net. And he's like, oh, excuse me, pardon me. Let me squeeze by you here. Yep. Um, the second one, like, and, you know, I, I saw some people saying, well, he held the stick and it's like, yeah, you know what, I, I can't be mad about a guy scoring a fucking sick, or setting up a sick goal like that. Sorry.

He can, he can hold the stick a little bit on plays like that, in my opinion. for a treat. Second one, he takes, you know, you just, you can do that with your arm if you're, if you're the puck carrier. I don't know what to tell you, you know. Third one, yeah, he just made it look really easy going to the net there.

And then here's the thing, though. So we're all talking about that. The play to himself off the boards for the goal is crazy. It's crazy. You could just laugh. Like, it's... What can you say? What can you say if you're L.A.?

Ah, yep, you know what? So here's what I'd say, if I'm L.A. And I'm trying to make myself feel better. A, we won the game. So who gives a shit? You know? But B, well, surely he's not going to do that again. The only reason that game was close is because he had four game-changing plays.

You know? But there is nothing, like in any other series, pick literally any other player in the league. Yeah. Maybe Nathan McKinnon is close to this territory. But anyone else, you go, all right. Oh, well, I mean, so Austin Matthews went crazy and created four goals all by himself.

He's not doing that every night. Connor McDavid, you're like, guys, how do we keep this from getting a five? because it's just, I mean, he didn't really show up until the third period. And he just... He was like, okay, this is, well, I was just going to say, he said, okay, this game's over. And then the Kings were like, no, it isn't. Fuck you.

Get lost. But I mean, he just, like, it's like, Connery David, I mean, in general, but in the playoffs, where it's, everything's supposed to get tighter and, you know, all this stuff. And like I say, you've got. Copatar and Dono, and you've got last change and all of this. And it's like, it's, it's like when, like, the Timbits invite Dad out to like, and it's just one versus 10. And he's just, you know, putting it through guys' legs and making them fall over and, you know, having a, like, it's, it's just,

all you can do as a fan of any other team is laugh. That's exactly right. Yeah. But, but this is what I'm saying, though. Like, if you're L.A., you're terrified, and if you're Edmonton, if you're an Emmettin fan, it's cool as hell to have Connor McDavid. But that that lag game last night was a nightmare because no defense. Well, that's what I'm saying, though, is like. Stuart Skinner giving up knuckle balls.

If you're, if you're the Kings, you're saying, okay, we can probably reasonably count on McDavid to do that to us again, but not to that extent. The idea that he's going to go nuts in the third period and almost win the game for them, you know, like they needed four goal, for Connor McDavid primary points to get back in the game on insane plays. Right. And so I think you can tell yourself, we can keep them to two. And it would still be really impressive that he did it twice. But as long as, you know, well, I don't know if you saw this.

You know, who, you know, who, uh, who is in trouble from the Edmonton media from last night? Uh-oh. Evan Bouchard. It's all his fault. Really? Yeah. Uh, they were, they were really trying to get, uh, Knoblock to be like, so, uh, you're number one defenseman. He's dog shit, right?

You think he's the worst player in the league, is that right? And Knobloch was like, uh, no. I, I think, I think, did he play great? No. I'll see if I can. if I can find the quotes here really quickly. I was laughing seeing these come in last night. They ask him, like,

what did you think of his game tonight? And he's like, I saw Evan give us an excellent opportunity to win tonight, made a lot of nice plays. Was his game perfect? I'm not sure anybody's game was perfect tonight. I think Evan's a very important part of the team. Obviously, if we're going to have success, especially when we're missing one of our key defensemen,

especially one of our top four defensemen really have to step up. So they were really... Okay, hold on. There's a different quote that I must have missed. Something about I can't comment on that. Where was this? Anyway.

Oh, Noblock was asked about needing better defense defense from Bouchard, especially with that column out of the lineup. I can't comment on that. I don't know the breakdowns. And then he goes on to say, I think Evan's a very important part of our team. Like, I don't know, man, watching that game last night, I wasn't sitting there saying, you know, you know who's, who's problem like the fact that like one out of every five shots is going in the net? You know whose fault that is. This is going to be the story in Edmonton.

It has to be the story. That's exactly right. The goal, I mean, and again, you can't give up six goals on 30 shots. Games, you know, all of this stuff. I'm sure, you know, Skinner will have a shutout in game two and we'll all kind of swing over to the other side of the seesaw. But they, he wasn't good all year. That's exactly. That's the point of concern.

He was not great at times in the playoffs. And you're like, well, look, like you said, you got to win 16 times against the best teams in the league. Sometimes they're going to do that to you. You can't expect your goalie to go 950 in the post. postseason. That's what you tell yourself going into this year. How do you do this year? 896 is how we did this year.

You know, some of us all year were like, are the oilers going to go out and get a goalie at some point? And they even had a little bit of cap room, not a lot, but they strategically kept something for in the off season.

Yeah, there were there were, there were, uh, there were, uh, what's his name? I wanted to say Jack Campbell, I know that's not right. Guy from the Ducks, John Gibbs. Jesus Christ. There were John Gibson rumors. And it didn't happen. And we understand why, you know.

Yeah. But it was sort of a, okay, this is our guy. And we're one game into what could be a two-month stretch for these Oilers, but not a great game won. And I mean, the last goal, like, it was a weird one, not necessarily a terrible one. Like, it's that weird thing in hockey where, like, a clean shot that beats you is somehow worse than the knuckleball. Yeah. But also, dude, like, when coaches talk about we need a save, that's, that puck just has to stay out of the net. Yep.

And even then that only gets you to overtime, right? But you are going to overtime feeling like we just, we just broke their spirits. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Everyone's just looking at McDavid, like, what's going to happen on the first shift there, Big Dog? What do you got planned for us? That's exactly right. It's tough, man.

I don't know. I don't know, like you said, Skinner goes out and stops one of 32 in game two. everybody's like, okay, maybe that was a one-night thing. And because this is the other thing, you know, who also had an 800 safe percentage in this game is the guy, everybody's like, they're geniuses for going out and getting this guy. Darcy Kemper, uh, stopped 20 to 25. That's not good enough either, you know?

But it's just the, he didn't give up the last goal and so it's actually fine. Mm-hmm. I'm not feeling great about that if I'm the Kings. I'll tell you. That game was just, I know a lot of us, like, kind of looked at that series, like, oh, here we go again. Kind of tired of seeing these, but, like, that series now immediately moves to the top of the entertainment rankings. Yeah, and they, and like, they don't like each other, which is, like, the whole point of having,

having the playoffs set up this way is that, you know, familiarity breeds contempt. I don't know if you've ever heard that. That's one I made up. Okay, that's a good one. You should. Thanks. So, like, these guys don't like each other. Awesome.

Great. I think game two, like, I don't care of your team, the team you like is playing at the exact same time. Yeah. You have to be watching Edmonton, L.A. Mm-hmm. You drop everything to watch Edmonton, L.A., in my opinion, at this point. This is what it's all about. I don't have a ton else to say about this one.

Frankly, I was more a little. more, because this was such a blowout for a huge percentage of it that I I was not paying much attention to to most of it when Colorado and Dallas. As soon as they got the late goal to make it for, like it was

4-0, L.A. As soon as. Yeah, when it was 4-2, I... Ebertine 8, 4-1, you're like, well... Who gives a shit, fuck. All right, if they get the next one, if they get to 4-2, all right. Yep, no, 4-2 was one. I was like, okay, I got to shift my, you know,

I got to start splitting my attention again, basically. So I don't have a ton to say about the early proceedings. But again, you don't, my opinion, you don't want to spot the higher seed of four-goal lead in any game. It's not going to work out for you, generally speaking. All right, let's move on to some of the series that didn't happen last night. And we'll start with, Sean, how are you feeling about your beloved Ottawa senators? So far, so good for the Leafs in that series. I think we saw Ottawa's worst game.

They looked very much like a youngish team that was being their playoff debut. Yep. Running around bad. I mean, I know people are going to point at the penalty, the power play discrepancy, and, you know, we're trained to think that those numbers have to be equal. And there's a problem if they're not. There was a problem. The problem was Ottawa was running.

around like crazy and doing a bunch of stupid stuff. Yeah, that's exactly right. So I know people were mad about that Stutzel penalty, but it's like, look, if you want to say that's not a major, yeah, I agree with you. But you can't show a guy into the boards from behind. Yeah. You just, at the very least, when you do that, you're, you're handing a coin to the ref and saying flip this. And you can't be mad when it, when it comes up the wrong way. And yeah, I mean, were there things the Leafs did that could have been penalties?

And yes, of course. And we can always play this game with anything. But that was a very undisciplined running around game by Ottawa. If you're bitching about the refs in a 6-2 game, I just don't know what to say to that. Yeah. In a game where a 6-2 game where you score on a delayed penalty and you also have a major get reviewed down to a minor. Like there's things that are happening for both sides. But they should get that figured out.

Travis Green will get that through to them. And then they've got to figure out how to play a game that works for them without taking a bunch of dumb penalties. Latest all, Mark. Yeah, that is the thing to bring up here is that $8 million is what got them into the playoffs, that contract. You know? Or I guess the trade and the contract, however you want to.

Like the promise of the contract is what got them to go there. And that's why they're in the playoffs. Keeps playing like this. That's why they're out of the playoffs too, you know? You just need them to be better. What was it? Five goals on? 32 shots?

He wasn't... Five on 23. And it's not like he was awful. It's not like, you know, any of the goals were obviously bad ones. But I mean, at one point, I think early on, the senators were out shooting the Leafs like 10 to 3 and they were down to nothing. Yeah, shots in the game were 33, 24 for Ottawa.

Now, the shots by Ottawa were... A lot of them were... This was the shot quality game. Like, if you ever want to say that the shot clock lies, you look at, you know, where those shots were coming from. They were all from the outside. But still, you need a few saves. And it's, it's, you know, I pointed this out on, on the other show, a week or two ago,

like, the Leafs could not score against the Bruins last year other than the one game that Allmark started. Right. They faced him last year in the playoffs. And they scored. I mean, they, they won that game like three to two. It wasn't like he was awful. But that was the one game where the offense clicked even a little bit. and his record in the playoffs is not good.

Nope. Overall. Remember, you know, famously two years ago, Boston has, Boston has the best regular season ever. He wins the Vezina, goes in against Florida, doesn't look great, and gets benched for game seven. Almost unheard of to bench a Vesna winner for a game seven. and but but a lot of people saying they did it too late now I that's my read on that yes on that to not to relitigate a two and and a lot of it was fatigue and you know was he just worn out and that sort of thing and and that's why they kind of started doing the alternating

thing last year and then and then abandoned it immediately because swayman was so much better than than he was in the playoffs again so again these sort of things we all love a narrative of we've all seen, you know, goalies go out and have a few bad games in the playoffs, and we just, you know, we just talked about Hallibuck is a guy who's, who's had this hung on him too.

And again, it can change. Can change real quick. That game two shutout that we talked about in the other series, that could happen in this one, and then we're all, you know, right back to...

You feel like you need it almost. Like, he needs to not just, like, be fine in game in game two. You want him, kicking ass in game two. You want him looking like a Vesna winner in game two. Because otherwise you're just like

did we fuck up with this contract? You know? Just like, although I want to say this though. This is, everybody makes the jokes about the leaves. I get it. You know, they lose in the first round a lot. That's fine. You can't say they don't have experience

in the first round. That's right. This is our house, baby. that's exactly right like the senators I say this you see this a lot in the NCAA tournament

is like you can just sometimes you can tell vibe wise there's one team that's happy to be there and there's one team that's actually planning

to play the game you know and those kind of games can get out of hand a little bit and I certainly the way they were being covered

locally I was like Like, do the senators have happy to be heuritis? But the thing is, I don't think that's a concern because if they were playing the capitals, like if you flip them with Montreal, then, yeah, maybe. You can't have that against Toronto. Like, this is the level of that, how that rivalry, and you can call it a one-sided rivalry if you want, but the way that that permeates everything in Ottawa, from the owner on down, right?

I mean, the owner was talking crap last week. It's like this is the matchup. It's Toronto, then a gap, then Montreal, then a huge gap, and then whoever happens to be bubbling to the service at any given time in Ottawa. So, I mean, they can't just be happy to be there because they know if they lose this series, the season itself is still a success, but it's also like, guys. So we'll see.

Tonight feels like the early turning point. I think losing a game one, hey, first playoff game for a lot of these guys, he live with it. But now you want to show that

you can take that punch and keep going. And you don't you don't want to come back home down to nothing, not even knowing how much of a home ice advantage you're going to have. So I don't, you know, must win.

No, I don't think so for Ottawa, but they've got to show better than they did. And I think they will. I think. And the other thing is, from a Toronto perspective, this is the story with this team, always, always, always, always for nine straight years. I've said it a million times. It's not when the going gets tough, they quit, they fold. When the going gets tough, this Leafs team can surprise. you. It's when the going is good.

They pat themselves on the back and they break out the lounge chair and they, you know, all of that stuff. So, I don't know how much smoke they've had blown up their behinds after one good game, but it would not shock anyone for them to come out and lay an egg tonight.

But we'll see. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. Hey, speaking of laying an egg, the New Jersey Devils versus the Carolina hurricanes. Wolf man. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you this. I was watching that game

and then they cut to the New Jersey bench and I saw Sheldon Keefe there and I was like, ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, now I remember. Sure. Yeah, definitely. Shots in game one, 45 to 24. Expected goals in game one, 4.6 to 2.6. You ever hear of score effects?

Carolina has it, I'll tell you. Unblocked shot 6542. This was a fucking blood bath man. And I get it. All these guys are hurt on the devils. I don't think anybody, I don't know how many people. Like, I wish there was a way to look at, like, the stats on the NHL bracket challenge thing. Like when everybody fills out their bracket.

I would love to know what percentage of people had the devil's winning this series. and then if you could get in touch with them individually to go like, yeah, but you're just doing that because you think Carolina kind of sucks. You know, like, I don't know who believes in these devils. Certainly not me, you know? Yeah, it really just feels like without Hughes, it's, it's, like, this just doesn't seem to count.

And maybe, 100%. Maybe we're all, like, maybe this is the thing. where we're all counting a team out and getting over our skis on this and then they turn around and make it a series. It could happen. Not if they play like this. It's got to happen quick because there was no evidence in game one.

Like I don't, we've talked in the other series about, even when you lose, do you feel good about it? Like there was nothing there to feel good about as a Devils fan. I don't know. Markstrom had some moments, but other than that, I don't. Yeah. In fact, it's not just Hughes. Obviously, Seiganthaler is also hurt.

as well. And then, oh, yeah, Brendan Dillon and Cody Glass get hurt in this game. And briefly, Luke Hughes gets hurt in this game. That didn't look too good for a minute there. Like, he went down the tunnel holding his shoulder or whatever. I don't know. This is, this has potential to be like humiliate. Like, again, you would just say, well, you know, but I'm just saying on the

dice, this has the potential to be humiliating for the devils. Yeah. Now, if, and with the obvious caveat, we're getting way ahead of ourselves, let's say the devils get pumped in this year. They lose in four or five games. Sure. Do you walk away from this if you're the devil saying, like, that was a disaster, or are you just kind of giving yourself a passing?

We didn't have Jack Hughes regroup. No Hughes, no Seagenthaler. Yeah, I... Dougie Hamilton, you know, shaking off rust and... Right. Is it just not... Is this just not the year? You never want to say that, because, I mean, you never know what the future's going to hold,

but sometimes it's just not your year. Yeah, and it was obviously not your year well before the playoffs started. With the Hamilton injury and then the Hughes injury and then the, you know, just like three of your five, six, seven best players just like long term not available to you. I would be

now I'm not the devil's. Like I'm not involved with the organization. I don't care whether they win or lose any games ever. So I have no problem saying, hey, it's just not our year. To your point, are you concerned about like the long, the long-term effects of, you know,

it wasn't so long ago where we were like, oh, they need to change a lot about this roster. We thought this roster was set up for something, and then they had to go and change over their goalies and bring in some new defensemen and all this kind of stuff. I don't want to say this is like, like you don't need to have an existential crisis, I guess, is my point, if you're the devil's, regardless of outcome.

But the fact that we're talking about it in those terms now, one game into the series, that's bad. And also because you're like, okay, how many games can we count on Jack Hughes, like, being in the lineup for the rest of his career? You know what I mean? Like, how many times is he going to miss 10, 15, 20 games in a given season for the rest of his career? That's the concern you have to have, I think. Well, got good news. We don't have to worry about him being in New Jersey too much longer.

Yeah, we'll talk about that. Down the line. Anything else you want to say about that? We didn't really talk about Carolina at all. I guess I don't know what there is to say. Hey, Logan, Sancovin looks pretty fucking good. Yeah, Stancovin looked good. Yeah, not bad for, I'm sure the guy he got traded for is probably lighting it up in the other series.

that's fine. Did you see Lazarus's headline? Yes. Oh my God. I don't have it in front of me, but it was something like his struggles are understandable, but they're also unacceptable. And it's like, you don't want two games into a series. You don't want a guy that you just gave a shitload of money to and everything.

You don't want that guy where it's like his performance thus far has been unacceptable. That's a bad headline to see about. your guy. Purely as a fan and a team chaos guy, don't you kind of wish he hadn't signed the contract and he was going in a free agency? Like, that would be the tracker, right? As a guy who's job. Run the numbers after every

playoff game. Oh, he just dropped another half million. Yep. No, as a guy whose job on July 1 is to just sit in front of a computer and like type in what I think about like various trades or whatever or signings, I would love it if that guy got to July 1. That would really help

lighten up the day for me, you know, or brighten up the day. But, yeah, we are talking about the Carolina Hurricanes, of course. So, yeah, I, like you said, Freddie Anderson, you're, not that they were really testing him that much, but he only gave up the one goal. That's all you can ask for, really. From any goalie, let alone one who has a bit of a reputation as being a playoff stinky. guy, you know? Yeah, I just think there's

there's literally nothing in that game that you're looking at. Like they didn't just go up and then like coast. They went up and stood on the devil's throats. You know what I mean? And that's what you want to see. That's the, um, I don't know,

I don't know what was in the water among NCAA coaches this year, but multiple times, they talked about how hard it is explicitly in the terms of how hard it is to end another team season. Because those teams are fighting for their lives and you expect the best game out of them and that kind of thing. And Carolina was like, yeah, but like you're a fly fighting for your life against us, an elephant. You know what I mean? And that's what you want. You want them to show that killer instinct, like I said.

Yeah. And and I hate to be the embittered Lee fan here, but for devil's fans, if you do not hate that, by the way. If you're waiting, I don't. It's my whole personality. If you're waiting for Sheldon Keefe to make the adjustments. That's exactly right, brother. This is not a, this is not an area of strength, let's just say. Or it was not in the past. There's a, there's a reason there are multiple images of him making. making a pained face on the bench in the playoffs on the Puck Soup Discord that get posted anytime anything bad happens to a Sheldon Keefe coach team. And the reason is there are so many options to choose from of him making such faces. Anyway, the one other series that has actually happened so far, Minnesota and Vegas, you know, Minnesota I thought looked pretty good.

but Vegas look great. Yeah, I think that's about it. And I, you know, a wild team that not a lot of people have a ton of expectations for and a Vegas team that everyone always has expectations for one game in, it's played out about right. Yep. I don't, I don't think like Vegas, how do I want to say this? They're happy they won.

I think they had the better game overall. but if they want to say, we let the wild kind of hang around a little bit. You know, like we maybe should have done more to put them to the sword, as they say. I think Vegas, you could talk me into, they shouldn't be like elated with their game one performance. Nice to get the win, of course.

And they did have the better 60 minutes. But they didn't look as good as you would hope Vegas. could look against a wild team that, you know, they're good. But like you said, very few people are going to be picking them to win this series. Yeah, I don't know that. I think in our athletic thing, we had like three people out of dozens and dozens. Like it was close to 90% picking Vegas. And that's in a world where you want to go contrarian if you can so that you stand out.

And it was still like, no. Yeah. There's just, it sucks that the, the, um, the, the NHL's website doesn't like let you see who, like who's getting picked, you know? Mm-hmm. It would be, it would be so interesting to see 85% of people picked Vegas to win this series. Whatever, whatever the numbers are. I would be so interested to see, presumably like, tens of thousands of people.

people are signing up for this. That would be fun, that would be a fun data point. We could talk about it on our stupid podcast. People would, like, people would love to share that shit. Maybe they do, because I feel like there's a late deadline on that. There is. Maybe it hasn't passed yet. Like, they let you get a game in before they.

Yeah, I'm on, uh, you can go through 6 p.m. tonight, it says here, 6 p.m. Eastern. Oh, because that's when the, the final. series starts, basically. That makes sense. Well, it doesn't make sense that this is when the final series is starting. The playoffs started four fucking days ago. Like, let's get on it here. I can give you one little bit of insight.

Okay. The playoff contest that I do, where it's just as simple as list as many or as few teams as you want in order of how many wins they'll have in the playoffs. Yep. The Mike who scrapes the data. always polls, like, which teams were mentioned first the most times and which teams were mentioned last most times. Being mentioned first does not mean people are necessarily picking you to win the cup because you could pick only a couple of teams,

but, you know, it shows the confidence. And then being picked last means they think you're going to lose the most games, which means, or sorry, that you're going to win the fewest games, which is to say not just lose in the first round, but lose quickly. Montreal and New Jersey, neck and neck for the most, for being picked last, Minnesota not far behind them.

Yeah, I think that's right. I'm frankly a little surprised on Montreal being picked. I feel like that's kind of a fun and sexy upset pick. In fact, I picked it. I, you know, my stance on the, question of how good are the capitals is pretty well established on this point at this point.

So I believe I had Montreal in seven. Hell, I'm on the bracket web challenge website right now. I can look. Let's see here. I indeed had Montreal in seven, and I had Keynes in five. So that feels like I'm being a little generous. Do you have your, do you know your picks off the top of your head, or do you have them in front of you? I'm pretty sure I picked Washington.

Okay. I definitely picked Carolina. I picked Ottawa and Florida. And that's an interesting one. The late push for Tampa Bay being everyone's favorite is very interesting. Tampa Bay was the least picked team in my contest to show up last on a list. And again, a little, like it's a bit weird. You can't draw a completely straight line to saying like,

But that is the team that the fewest people looked at and thought they're going out quick. Yeah, and I think that's pretty reasonable. Yeah. You just... But they're playing the two-time defending conference champs. That's, yeah, for sure. Like when you compare them, like, their people have more confidence in... Well, I mean, it's actually like Florida and Tampa are two of the least picked teams.

So maybe it's more of a case of just people staying away from that series, saying like, oh, I don't know what to do with that. Vegas was in between the two of them. Yeah, you could tell me that's like 6040, 55, 45, 45. That would make perfect sense to me. Just real, real quick, the teams that were listed first the most, Winnipeg just ahead of Colorado. So a bit of a surprise.

It felt like Winnipeg was kind of one of those teams that there was still a lot of doubts about, but it feels like there was a late shift to people actually buying them as central favorites and not just the team that's going to win in round one and then be fodder for whoever comes out of Colorado, Dallas. Yeah, I think that's people banking on the war of attrition in Colorado, Dallas, if I had to guess. But I'll just read my picks. I had Toronto and seven, Tampa and six. I already said the other two East ones. Kings in seven, knights in six, avs in five, jets in six.

And for the record, my cup final is abs over Carolina. Okay. I've got Winnipeg over Carolina. I did. Carolina beating Florida in the conference final. I had them over Tampa, yeah. Jets, Dallas, Knights, and Oilers. Jets over Dallas, Oilers over Knights.

So the all can, I had quite a few people point out that my final four of Edmonton versus Winnipeg and Florida versus Carolina would probably result in some TV executives jumping out of buildings. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Do you have anything to say about Florida and Tampa? before we can't wait can't wait um yeah it's gonna be awesome feel free to get started any time boys but uh that one could be that that's another one of those that just on paper looks just like such an inevitable long nasty series that you just really really hold two teams that

don't like each other that's all you're looking for you know they definitely don't like this is the sort of thing i in in all the same ways they Edmonton, LA kind of feels like the playoff format force feeding us a matchup we don't really want over and over again. If the playoff format means Tampa, Florida, year after year, yeah, sign me up. Let's go. Let's go. That's exactly right. I'm surprised at how, again, like, how many things I've seen were Tampa is emerging as people's cup pick in a lot of cases. And again, when you're picking the playoffs, you're not just picking like, hey, this is who I bet my life savings on. There's a little bit of that, like, you know, I want to pick someone that no one else picks.

And sometimes everyone's surprise pick ends up being the same pick. Yeah. It just feels like that's kind of happening with Tampa. I agree. All right. Let's move on then to, gosh, it was a pretty busy week even beyond just the playoffs, which, I don't can you I'm sure you can

I'm sure there are instances of this but can you remember a like two three day period where four coaches got fired I mean yes but the weird thing was usually you get the kind of black Monday

idea where it's right after and it feels like everyone waited a few extra days yeah this time around but yeah which team do you want to start I have written down here Vancouver first. I think they're the...

Let's start there because we... The most fun one to talk about for sure. Because it's not even a firing, but... Well, the whole thing is a mess. Let's just... I don't even know where you start. Good Lord. Pick a point to talk about and we'll do it.

Let's start with the press conference. And specifically, I think Patrick Alvin was there for the press conference. The actual GM, but I didn't see anything he said. It is... No, I literally just saw like a point where Patrick Alvin just kind of like laughed and the camera panned over to him for a second. And then, you know, old JR was hold in court, let's just say. And it was a wild press conference. Basically, he, well, we'll start with the Quinn Hughes thing because that's the funniest thing for sure.

They ask him about like, hey, you know, Quinn Hughes, like this guy's going to. need a contract next summer. Like, what are you, what are you got to say about that, basically? And his answer was, well, he wants to play with his brothers. And what we got to do is an organization, which, to be clear, I agree with him saying that he should think this. What we're going to do is we got to find a way to get his brothers here. Yeah.

Because otherwise, we're in a lot of fucking trouble, basically. And I don't know if people are aware of this, but you're not allowed to say. they're not allowed to say I want to go and get these other these other guys well he did he did then say but we got to be careful about tampering

stuff so it's all good yeah as long as you say you know it's to be clear I'm not tampering okay well there you go tampering is like racism as long as you preface your obvious tampering by saying look I don't want to sound like a tamperer

here but Louis Hughes brothers, am I right? They all love fresh salmon. Yeah, that's right. It's, yeah,

his point was a, he wants to play with his brothers, some of it may be out of our control, but not if we go and get that. To me, it's the sum of it's out of our control part that is the real news here. Not the tampering.

It's the fact that he's even acknowledging that, hey, man, we might be in a situation where it doesn't matter what we do. If this guy really has his heart set on playing with his brothers, who knows? You know, we can offer him, Lord knows what, and maybe he doesn't take it,

which terrifies me if I'm Vancouver. Because if I'm a Canucks fan, this season was such a design, such a mess and all, but I mean, you just, the thing that keeps you going is, what we've got, Quinn Hughes. we've got a guy that if you redrafted the whole league he'd be a top five or ten pick to build around

so we're okay if there's any doubt about that I don't even know where you go but let's also talk about Rick Tocket because well yeah that's the we're talking about coaching Chase's so Rick Talkett

so the reason we're lumping this in if people are like I didn't think Rick Tocket got fired he didn't kind of sort of of. He, his contract is expiring. He has a team option for next year. That's right. So they could just say, yeah, you're the coach next year. Boom. We're exercising the option. You have to you now have a contract with one year left to go. They announced that they're not doing that. Instead, they're going to try to negotiate a new deal with him, but he will essentially be a free agent. So in a way, it's kind, I mean, it makes sense. in that it's sort of like, if he wants to be here, we want him here. But if he really doesn't want to be here, then we're not going to drag this out for another year. And Lord knows the Canucks have had enough coaching side shows over the years. I kind of get that.

But. Yeah. I just think if they're saying we want to extend him, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, was it Elliot was saying like it would take the biggest coaching contract in Vancouver Canucks history to keep him? Well, probably. I mean, where's that bar set? No, for sure. But my thing is, and I said this before, like, I'd kind of let him be someone else's problem.

Maybe. This is a sun-kissed orange zero, by the way. All right. If, you know, a lot of people have connected the dots between him and Philadelphia, obviously. Yeah. I don't think there's... Yeah, including the Philadelphia Flyers. Yeah.

Like, let's be serious here. But I don't know. I mean, I guess that is the worst case is that you exercise the option. You keep him for a year and then you... He doesn't want to be there and you've got this whole mess of a situation. Well, you exercise the option and you, like, and you go... you know, not even a year. You just start the negotiations now.

Well, that's it. Like this is, you roll it into. There's nothing about extending him or exercising the option that impairs your ability to sign a long-term deal. And to my mind, it's at least some degree of leverage, right? You're sitting down to negotiate with him. And if the numbers get too high or whatever, you go, I mean, look, man, we're going to have you back next year. So, and coaches, Yeah.

Coaches, unlike players, my understanding is you can do things like tear up a year of a deal. Well, and, right? It's not like a player where a player's got another year. That's it. They, they, they, you, your extension starts after that. You could sit down and say, we're going to bring you back, but, you know, here's the terms of next year based on the option you agree to. But we'll, we'll, we'll scratch that off and give you more money for next year as part of a long. longer term deal and you use that as leverage.

The fact that they're not doing that is interesting to me. Well, right. So my thing with it is very simple. Remember when they traded for Brandon Sutter that time and they needed to extend him and they immediately did so. But even before they did that, they gave him a retroactive no movement clause that applied to like the next year or something. Do you remember this?

Yeah, that's basically what has. happened was they were like, not only will we give you a new contract, but we're also going to act like you have a no movement clause now, even though you don't. Because no movement clauses are weird and can sort of be, I don't know, yeah, they're strange. Yeah. So, I don't know. Like, why not just do that? Unless you're like, we're not really convinced that he's our coach for the long term.

Or like, we're not. Kind of feels that way, right? Yeah, so like, why, why be like, yeah, but we'll try to negotiate an extension? Like, I just feel like if you got one foot out the door, you might as well. Like, what is it? Like, you don't want to, you don't want to, like, uh, take your foot off first without taking a foot toward second or a step towards second or whatever that's saying is. Mm-hmm.

You know what I'm saying? Like, make the, make the move. Like, just, just fucking, uh, just commit one way or the other. I this is my whole thing with the Vancouver Canucks is the vibe seem insanely fucking bad and I don't know that I think Rick Tocke is the guy to fix it because Rick Tocke when they were talking the, did you see these quotes the other day about like the Miller-Peterson thing from the clean-out day? No. Where he was basically like, look, I really. like J.T. Miller. I'm a huge J.T. Miller kicks at.

Oh, who's saying this? Yes. And maybe it was just the clips I saw. I didn't see a ton of of praise for Elias Pedersen in there. A lot of praise for J.T. Miller. Because that's the other piece of this is Rutherford had some really pointed comments about Patterson. That's what I'm saying. Between what they're openly saying and also

some of the messaging that's just being pushed out through indirect ways is this guy doesn't work hard enough there's a lot of talk about what he does in the summer you know like

basically like he's got to work in the summer he's got to work like an $11 million player now I don't know what he was doing in the summers before but obviously it wasn't enough or it wasn't the right things and there are kind of going in on them and not

they certainly don't seem like they are trying to protect their franchise player, or at least their highest paid player, from criticism. They feel like they're more in the phase where they're like, you know what, this guy needs to hear this a few times. But he's certainly heard it. And I don't know, for a guy who looked miserable the entire season, I don't know. It's tough. Yep.

I wrote about this last week, and I think we might have talked about it on the show a little bit. but like, don't we just, why do we need to keep this, this iteration of the Canucks together at this point? Don't we all, like, doesn't it seem like everyone agrees it's fucked up and not working? Doesn't it seem like every single person there? It's just like, I don't know, man.

This is crazy. Nobody seems to like being there. Unbelievable. Including Quinn Hughes. That's your Dempco, we really like to mention, but, you know, like, it's a bit of a, like, And I don't know what it is. Usually you can point to somebody and be like, yeah, everyone hates the coach.

Everyone hates this player or that. Like, I don't know. I do not know. Let's shift to the Rangers because that is a case where we kind of do know who the problem is as far as why everyone hates it there. And it's Chris Dury. And that doesn't mean he's a problem in the sense that he's wrong and everyone else is right. But he's the problem in that everyone's mad at him.

him. Yeah. There seems to be a lot of feeling coming out of New York that that whole organization is a mess. Nobody likes it there, including the players, but not limited to the players. Right. So it was Mika Zabanajad yesterday who had some quotes about like the Barclay Goodrow trade is what kind of made everyone hate Christy. And then it wasn't helped with like the Truba trade and all this kind of stuff. And I don't remember who said this, but it's like, this is the funniest sport in the world because it's like when you have a guy who objectively is like hurting your team, both in terms of his contract and he's not particularly good, that guy is untradable if guys on the team like him.

You are not allowed to move that guy or the whole team will sulk for an entire 82 game season in the middle of. what's supposed to be their only competitive window. Yep. That's the message here. And that isn't going to play well in most markets. Definitely not New York.

Definitely not when you have a season like they just had. I guess the news is that the coach is out, but Drury Sting. That's a minor surprise to me. Yeah, I I get it in so far as, like, you don't feel like ownership has the best, like, just kind of, whatever happens with the Rangers at somebody else's business. I'll just sign the, like we always say, I'll just sign the checks and I'll stay out of their way.

To a certain extent. The last time he inserted himself into these discussions was, or into Rangers' discussions, was when the vibes were really bad around the team, because, Tom Wilson ragdled Artami Panarin and we'll talk about the Artemian thing in the second and he was like, we gotta get tougher. What are we fucking doing here? And then they go out and they get worse,

which is how teams get tougher as a general rule. Am I wrong that that's when they signed the Barclay-Goodre deal? I don't remember. Me neither. Anyway, they intentionally got worse. And then that was the last time. we really heard from the owner.

But apparently, the owner's been sitting in on these exit meetings. And so now what happened with Chris Drury is he has really gotten himself under the microscope a little bit. And I don't know. If the Rangers start out slow next year, I don't know how much longer he's keeping this job. But if the ownership wants to let him fire the coach, I think everybody kind of came into the offseason with the understanding that the coach was getting fired. So, you know, what's the difference at the end of the day? Third time he's fired a coach in four years.

To be fair, everybody knew the David, and why am I being fair to Chris Drewby? But everybody knew the David Quinn thing was never going to last, and he didn't hire him. So my question is this. And we didn't talk about this with Vancouver as well. But so, yeah, let's let's, let's do the Rangers first. Who do you, who do you think like, not like, don't give me a name necessarily, but like, who do you think they should hire in terms of like archetype for, because they basically cycled through all the big ones, the new up and coming guy who everybody agrees as a future

NHL head coach. They tried that. It didn't work. Maybe they tried it at the wrong time in their competitive cycle. But then they were like, okay, let's bring in the hard ass. Dr. Gargoland lasted two seasons. Now let's bring in the guy who's a little more player friendly, a lot of success in his career, and that's figure Lavillette. That didn't work either.

Yep. So who do they hire? Like, where is there to go from here? Well, so I'm looking at an email, one of those emails from the odds maker folks. I don't know if you got this same one. I probably did. The New York Rangers next head coach, the number one on the list, name on the list is very weird to me. Okay, I'm listening.

Mike Sullivan. Right. Okay. Not only that, a team in their division and a team that seems to be shadowed GMed by a player who really likes Mike Sullivan. And generally speaking, coaches coaching two teams at the same time is frowned upon. Just a lot of work. You can do it, Zoom and multitasking and that sort of thing. But it's stuff.

Next on the list is Jay Leach. The third on the list is the interesting one, which is David Kroll. Right. And you've talked about this. We, yeah. So the David Carl, let's just put it this way. David Carl is not the guy who is being, or New York is not the team that is being talked about the most in connection with David Carl. Let's just, let's just put that out there right now.

That Chicago will get to them later. The name that I kind of think feels like a slam dunk, although again with the Panarin thing, maybe not so much now. Okay, let's quickly talk about the Panarin thing now. So, came out last week in The Athletic. I'll just, I'll just quote from the, from the Katie Strang article here. New York Rangers forward Artemey Panarin in Madison Square Garden Sports, the company that owns the team, paid financial settlements to a Rangers employee last year after she alleged that Panarin sexually assaulted her,

according to an NHL source who reviewed the settlements and three others briefed about them. So not a lot of, well, there's details in the story and I don't really want to talk about them because they're not very good. They're a huge bummer to read about. But it's, it was a situation where they paid the settlements. It's very clear that some NDAs were signed because they both said both the MSG spokesperson and the woman who was not identified in the article as is often. the case in these situations. They both said, quote, the matter has been resolved. So that says to me, that's NDA territory.

There are some really nasty details in the article. Again, if you want to read those, you know. And the details are allegations, you know, as settlement does not, is not the same as being found guilty, et cetera, et cetera. draw your own conclusions, but they, there was a settlement. Yes. And again, both the player and the team paid the settlement.

So that's a, you know, that's how much of a thing this was for all involved. And again, this was last year. This was the woman left the organization in August 2024. Right. So, yeah.

And, you know, part of, in addition to just the, the, all the other reasons why this feels meaningful to tie back to what we were saying with Chris Drury and the feeling in the organization that, you know, they're ruthlessly shedding players for all sorts of reasons. And yet this had been known for a year and a half. and, you know, not only was Artembe Panarin clearly still on the team, but this had not been made public, this had not been addressed, et cetera. Yeah, it says in the article, the alleged assault occurred in December 2023 during a Rangers road trip. So, yeah, like, I would have said this was a slam dunk, Joel Quinville hire. for like it just seemed like such an obvious connection to draw like a coach with with a legendary track record and all that. Now I don't know PR-wise if you can have this news come out and then also hire the guy from the Chicago Blackhawks in 2010, who hasn't been in the league in what, four or five years now. Has been that long? Yeah, I guess it has.

Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I don't know. The thing with a lot of coaches is you're looking at this going, do I want to go to, do I want this opportunity? And clearly, as we always say, there's 32 jobs, somebody's going to want it. Yeah. But if you're somebody with options, like a David Carl. Like a David Carl.

Like some of these other guys. You're kind of looking at this going, okay. the GM is on, you would have to think very shaky ground. Do I want to go somewhere where if we have one bad season, the GM's getting fired? In which case, my job immediately becomes, I have no job security. Or if the GM doesn't get fired, we've seen this guy's shelf life for a coach two years, and then he moves on. Right. So I even under those. circumstances, I probably

maybe don't get two years. Now, of course, as a coach, you can sit down and say, I want a five-year contract to mitigate some of that concern. But it's tough. This is a, you know, and the Rangers are a marquee franchise, and I'm sure there's lots of people who would love to, you know, be in New York and

all of that stuff, but. And presumably they pay really well. You would have to assume, yeah. but I don't know that's if I'm somebody who's got multiple options and all these jobs are opening up I don't know the Rangers are at the top of my list. Yeah and again the vibes just seem insanely bad

like you're potentially walking into a job where it's like oh yeah everybody on the team is pissed off at somebody else on the team or in the organization and you got to manage some like weirdly high expectations despite the fact that it seems like maybe the team's not very good, you know? Like, I'm not exactly psyched to be taking the Rangers job if, like you say, you have other options available. So, and we talked about it with Vancouver, but it's the same idea.

It's like, you want to take over the Vancouver Canucks now? You do? Okay. I mean, like you say, there's only 32 of these jobs, so like that certainly plays into it. But I don't know, like, that you're getting the best and brightest options, you know. Another, another coach that I, that I think might kind of work with the Rangers and maybe a couple other teams, but one that obviously would be a bit of a retread. If we're trying to ring some points out of a roster and make the goalie look good and all that kind of thing, John Tortorilla, are we thinking about it? Is he on the odds list that you got? He was.

He was down. Yeah, he was far down. Joe Quenville, by the way, was on the list. Yep. The Tortorella is there, as is Gerard Gallant, which I think is just, sometimes they throw these names in there just to take your free money. But the other one, Mike Pecka is on there. Jay Woodcroft, we've kind of forgotten.

And Bruce Boodrow, again, that just sort of feels like, hey, we know that name. Yeah, Woodcroft is like kind of the one coach that they haven't tried, the archetype. You know what I mean? Where it's, this is a young guy. Seems good. Maybe fired a little unfairly, but not a ton of NHL head coaching experience otherwise. That's like the one archetype they haven't tried.

So maybe that's, and I don't think that would be a bad choice for them. I think he's a good coach. Although, you know, easy to look like a good coach when... Yeah, that he hasn't been... Totally. I agree. And again, Philadelphia, if it's not talk it, you wonder about Woodcroft may be there. Yeah.

Well, okay. So let's just go to Philadelphia then. Obviously, this has been a longer-term coaching change. We've known about this for a little while now. And with the news that Tocket is probably becoming a free agent, certainly not having his option picked up. We're just all sitting there going and, okay, just tell us when the press conferences will be there. With that having been said, there's an NCAA coach in the mix here.

But it's not necessarily David Carl. Danny Breyer had said the other day, I'd consider an NCAA coach. Do you know who the other NCAA coach is that everybody is? I don't know any NCAA coach. Well, you know one. It's David Carl. I kind of only fake that. Okay, fair enough.

The other coach is this guy, Pat Fershweiler, who is the coach of Western Michigan University, who you will perhaps recall, perhaps not. that they just won the national championship for the first time in program history. Okay. And the thing about Pat Furschweiler is he is only a first year, or like this is his first time with an NCAA head coaching giggies in his mid-50s, I want to say. And he's coaching at Western, which is his alma mater. And he had previously, I want to say he was with Derek Lalonde in Detroit. Maybe on their, like as an assistant, if I'm remembering right.

Okay. But this is the crucial part. Do you know where Keith Jones went to college? I was going to say, what's the connection? How does Danny Beirier know this guy? When were they roommates? Okay. He and Keith Jones and Pat Furschweiler.

I don't know if I said his name. I forget already. But Pat Furshweiler is the coach's name. And he and Keith Jones were on Western Michigan together in this. in the 80s, or 90s, I guess it would have been, right? Mm-hmm. Well, whatever. A long time ago, they were on Western together.

And Keith Jones, in fact, Keith Jones was at the national championship game, presumably partly in his role as the GM of the, or the president of the Flyers, but perhaps more pointedly, because he went to Western and was really happy to see his alma mater win a national championship. They also, for people who are not keeping up with this sort of thing, they also just signed a guy from Western Michigan to play for the Flyers. So further connections. And so I kind of of the opinion, if it's not Rick Tockett, it will be Pat Furschweiler and not David Carl. Okay. But I think we all agree that it's most likely going to be Rick Tocke. We're we're it it it certainly seems that way.

Yeah. Um, so that's that. Uh, oh, the other one of the other coaching changes yesterday. Seattle one year, Dan Bilesma, smell you later. We're, we're moving on. Yeah. And, and the, the, the real interesting thing here is reportedly, and I say that because I don't think it was. It's not a fit.

No, um, in fact, he's having, I want to say he's having a presser. today at like 4 p.m., which is 1 p.m. their time. I want to say Ron Francis is having a presser. And I think it was Elliot reported that he would be moving upstairs and Jason Botterill would be taking over his GM. Which you wonder if I. if these two things are related, right now. You go to Jason Botterill. You say, we're moving Ron upstairs.

You're going to be the GM. And he goes, don't like the coach, want to hire my own guy. And so you have Francis kind of bloody his hands on the way out rather than the new guy. I mean, it's Seattle's kind of a mess, man. I don't, I don't see. No kind of about it to me. Yeah. I just, I don't see the path to serious contention there.

I don't think it was a coaching problem, but I also don't think that they necessarily had the right guy. Yeah, there are another team where, like, I do like to kind of think of coaching hires in terms of like archetypes and things of this nature. and I'm trying to think were Botterill and and Bilesma have overlapped in Buffalo? That's a good question. I don't think so.

Yeah, it says here it says here, I just pulled it up. 16, 17 is when is when he was when Bilesma got fired and Bauderil got hired and Bauderil got hired. 17, 18. Okay.

So yeah, I think that in terms of archetypes, they did the the, the, the, the, I mean,

I think we all thought the hacks stole higher was strange on day one. But, um, that, that was the kind of knob block-ish, or not knoblock, uh,

Woodcroft-ish, let's give this guy another chance who know, you know, how do we want to play it, blah, blah, blah, tough to evaluate. Okay, they move on from him. They bring in the guy who, you know, long NHL head coach and career and some amount of success, obviously. But also, it had been a while. and he had turned into more of a development guy for their AHL team, and they really liked what he did down there. And then one year later, they were like, ooh, whoof, big mistake by us.

So their stated goal, I believe, is playoffs next year. And so my question to you is this. Is there a coach they can hire that you look at this roster, or this roster after a few changes this summer and say they can be competitive in the Pacific Division. Nope. That's exactly right, yeah. Beyond the typical, I mean, this is the NHL and weird stuff happens and who knows.

Well, they already got that with Dave Haxdoll. They should try it again. They got, yeah. Year two. For one year and it probably, I mean, purely from a roster building standpoint, it probably set them back. I mean, I don't think. Thank you ever begrudge a team having the early success get the fans.

Yeah, just don't buy your own bullshit. That's it. I mean, I didn't like the job Ron Francis did here since day one. No, no, no, no, no. The expansion draft, the lack of trades. I understand there was almost a level of soft collusion in the league to not make it easy for him after what happened with Vegas. But still. Some have called it soft tampering.

No, that's a different thing. Oh, my bad. It's, but I wasn't impressed from day one. I had to eat my words there for a little bit in year two, but I think moving on here is the right call. Kind of interesting that they already announced that Jessica Campbell would be back. Oh, I didn't see that part of it. Yeah, I saw that somewhere.

Interesting just because, you know, obviously she, her hiring, was historic and people are going to be interested in it, but the idea that you can't, you can't hire the first woman to be an assistant coach in the NHL and then be like, ah, one year later, that did not work out. We fucked up. You wouldn't think, but it is also, it's unusual, although not unprecedented for a team to say, we want to keep this assistant. Yeah, no, for sure.

The assistant wasn't the problem here, for sure. I guess there will be a question of if she's a candidate for the head coaching job. given that she's staying. But I mean, normally I might say, hey, if things aren't working, you don't promote from within,

but they are kind of doing that at the GM level. So I don't know. There was another thing that I saw, Sean Shapiro, my co-worker, my colleague at elite prospects. He posted that

this whole time, Jason Botter has been living in Michigan. And so if he takes this job, he would have to relocate. Okay. And I was like, I guess you can be an AGM from anywhere. Like, who's stopping you?

You know, they got Zoom now. I guess. I mean, it's like traveling with the team and all that stuff and just. No, like he's like, I saw him. What Sean said was like, I saw him at Red Wings games like a ton of times this year. Huh. That's interesting. That is interesting, isn't it?

I don't know. I don't know what's going on over there. But like you say, it just doesn't. feel like a fucking huge mess. So the same guy who sent me the Rangers' odds. The only other team he sent was Anaheim. Okay. Let's do them.

Okay. Because I found this interesting. Number one on their list, Peter Lavieland. I get it. When you get these odds makers lists, they're guessing to an extent, but it's their educated guesses. Right. And anyone who's taking your money on a sports bet is not just throwing darts at a

to be nice and, you know, that sort of thing. Like, they're typically have some information. Number two. I have a pitch. Wait, hold on. I have a pitch. Hit me. The nice bookie, and that is the one where he's just doing it to be nice.

It's just, you know, this guy probably, I'm sure whatever thing you thought of, he probably hasn't thought of. So, I mean, it's free money. Get in there. Oops. It used to be like that in the, in hockey betting, it used to be like that. There was a time. Here's, here's the guy who's number two.

Pascal Vincent. Okay. If you say so. I, uh, yeah. That, that seemed interesting to me. Uh, yeah, that, that is one of those ones where, again, you look at it and you go, okay, there's something up with that. You know what I mean? Like, they're, God, what was he the, just the one season is the head coach in Columbus?

He only got one season in Columbus. And remember, that was the Mike Babcock here. So they hire Mike Babcock. He doesn't even make it out of training camp. Vincent goes in. Did he make it two training camp? I don't think he did, right? I think it was like the eve of training camp sort of thing.

Yeah, that's right. And so Vincent comes in, does not do a great job, but also. Who would? Yeah. Who would? Remember, Jared Bednar was the closest comparable for a guy. coming in late in Colorado, and he got crushed in year one. And we know he's a pretty good coach.

Yeah, it worked out okay for the F's. Pascovenza has been the, he's the HL coach for the Habs. Right. And before that, before he joined the Blue Jackets, I want to say he was, oh God, was it Manitoba's head coach for a while? Yes, Manitoba, which is the Jets. The Jets, yeah. So again, I'm not completely clear on what the, connection to Pat Verbeek is because we know there has to be one.

Well, so this is what I was going to say, though, even beyond that, is like, didn't we just try, didn't we just try, let's hire the long time AHL coach? Again, just thinking in archetypes. Didn't we just hire someone with his basically a very similar resume? And kind of the, yeah, the development coach, right? That's right. Because Verbeek was also quoted as saying his expectation for next year is the playoffs. And granted, good luck. That is kind of what you have to say as a GM, but it certainly

signals a level of expectation that it's not just come in here and teach some good habits. It's not, so this is the interesting part of it to me is it's not just that he said playoffs. It's that he said we want 10 extra wins next year, which is 20 points in the standings. And I don't know what, again, like, unless you're hiring Joel Quinville, I don't know what coach you're hiring, where are even reasonably confident, this guy is going to be worth a 10-win swing. Not even a 10-win swing. 10 extra points or 10 extra wins in the standings. Not like five losses turn into wins.

And now you feel like you have 10 more wins or whatever. Like that's crazy. And you put it that way. That is. And we've seen teams do that. Again, who are you hiring that you're confident can do that for you? So the list is Lavellette 1, Vincent 2. David Carl 3

Marco Sturm A familiar name as a player Then Galant Jeff Blasill Mike Valuci John Tortero Claudeau

Claudeau Bruce Brudrow Shown up again Oh yeah You gotta bring That's to bring the guy back Yeah You got to bring that

Ryan's Worsowski The Sharks Current Sharks Head Coach Yeah Another AHL

Draft and Develop guy I guess is the I don't I don't know what you do here I think like it would because here's the thing it seems like

the young guys on the team didn't like how they were used by Greg Cronin who they fired on Sunday and what's interesting about Cronin is that like

the reason they didn't like him is he you know played the veterans more than the kids basically. And that's maybe not what you want to do if you have a team full of kids. But also, you know, the way teams allocate money kind of has to dictate what, like, you don't sign the Alex Coulorn contract and then say to your coach, and by the way,

if you want to play that guy 12 minutes a night, that's fine. Maybe with like a John Tortorella type, you just kind of go, hey, You know, what you do in terms of getting more points out of a roster than you should reasonably get, who better than John Tortorella, historically speaking? Very few guys. But also, part of the reason it didn't work out in Philadelphia was he was like, hey, Mitchkov, you're playing 12 minutes tonight. Fuck you. You know? Yeah.

And so, like, the idea that you fire the guy who is like saying like, I don't know. know if we need that guy. We need like Troy Terry out on the first power play unit. Yeah. I just know that when I wrote about the ducks in the, like, at the end of the season, I was somewhat surprised by how little progress had been made by the key young players. Certainly, I don't think any of the skaters. Yeah.

Took a step that you would say was better than expected. And Zedrus. Like, regressed insane. Yeah. And even the other guys, they've got lots of good young players. In theory. In theory. And I know, like, I'm sitting here saying, oh, better than expected.

It's like, well, what do you want the coach to do to drive a guy beyond expectations? But that, you kind of need that. That's the job, right? You need to, you need a couple of guys that you had penciled in as good second liners turn into first liners. The job on a team like this is to get more out of the guys than they did the previous year. That's the whole thing when you're when you're, when you have a team full of 22 year olds. And and Cronin didn't do that. And but again, I, I don't all the way blame Greg Cronin because I just, I just look at it and go, well, there was kind of an expectation that they would take a step.

And maybe if he's seeing that the young players aren't doing. that, he's like, okay, well, then Troy Terry, again, another guy that just got a huge contract extension. And he's like, well, I guess we'll just play the guys that are getting the most money. I don't, I can't all the way blame a coach for thinking like that. But again, I've said before, like, I always cite this when I bring up the Trevor Zegris thing is the first interview I saw with Greg Cronin. He's like, well, we got to, we got to get some players playing the right way. And, and like if you looked at the first letter of every sentence he said, it spelled out, Trevor Zegra sucks. Mm-hmm.

You know? Like, if that was always how they were going to treat Trevor Zegra's, I'm not surprised that it worked out this way. But it does make me wonder if they're just going to trade him this summer. They should. Yeah, of course they should. Two or three years. Wasn't it they had a deal in place from Montreal? Oh, was that, was that?

That's, where did I just see that? Yeah, they had a deal in place with Montreal and then it didn't come together for whatever reason. I'll look this up really quickly. But yeah, say what you were going to say. Sorry. Yeah. I mean, this is like, at some point this can't, they kick the can down the road so many times that there's not even a can anymore. Right.

It's just like some scrap metal. And I get that like you don't want to sell low, but at some point you got to sell. Yep. Totally. This is not getting any better. There's no, nobody envisions a scenario where Trevor Zegres is a all-star level player in Anaheim and you're going, geez, I'm really glad we didn't panic. Right. At this point, it's a, it feels like a kind of a lost cause.

Boston and Chicago, you know, we'll see what they want to do. Boston, I think, needs to hire a veteran. They can't go the David Carl route. Chicago really wants to go the David Carl route. And that's about it. Is that the team that you're saying is the bet? Yeah. Yeah.

And that would make sense. If I'm David Carl, I feel like, you know, Kyle Davidson may be on shaky ground, but I feel better about my long-term future than I do going to New York. Yeah. And, you know, they have the financial resources to throw all the money in turn. If I want to go to a big city and do all that, which some college guys don't. But Chicago gives me everything that New York gives me, for the most part. But I'll I just, I'll say it for the millionth time.

I wouldn't be less surprised if Carl just says no thanks and stays in college. Yeah. Yeah. And I think you've made a good case for why I could absolutely. So, yeah. All right, let's quickly hit on the Red Wings are mad that Steve Eiserman didn't trade for middle six forward or whatever. Well, just interesting. Dylan Larkin really clearly

expressed some unhappiness. Now, he didn't trash him. He didn't, I won't overstate it. But if you haven't seen the clip, it's worth taking a look at. It is unusual for a team captain,

team leader to... It was pointed, but it wasn't... Yeah, that's right. It certainly wasn't the sort of thing that you look at and go, oh, there's a rift here and this is good... No, no. Nothing like that.

But... It scanned to me as a guy who's sick of fucking missing the... playoffs. Yeah. And it was very interesting just even outside of the Detroit thing, because obviously the dynamic with it being Steve Eiserman has, it complicates some of the narratives there. Absolutely.

It's the fact that we always hear at the deadline, well, I don't want to, my precious chemistry, maybe I, you know, I don't want to disrupt. And the flip side of it is sometimes the players are expecting that boost. They're expecting that vote of confidence. and when it doesn't arrive, that can have an effect. And Dylan Larkin was basically saying like that, we just, we were waiting for reinforcements, and when they didn't arrive, it really sounds like that.

He is saying that that took something out of them now. Maybe that's just a convenient excuse. Yeah, they finished, I think, five or six points out of the house. And obviously, if the deadline comes and they win six games in a row, we all go, Steve Eisenman, Brilliant. He showed confidence in them by not making the trade by, you know, all this stuff. But it's very interesting that Dylan Larkin, like, we've been talking about is the bloom coming off the rows on Steve Eisenman in Detroit for it feels like a few years now? And it sure sounds like it kind of is.

Yeah. I mean, and the only other thing I wanted to say about this is, you know, I didn't expect Dylan Larkin to get up there and be like, and he should have made the coaching change three weeks before he didn't. be in this mess. Yep, that's true. That would be the one thing I'd be complaining about. Yeah. Women's worlds. Congratulations, Team USA. Overtime. It's fun game. These colors don't run, et cetera, et cetera. But, yeah. Nasty overtime goal. Very, very bad giveaway by Canada. Bad line change. The whole thing was a mess.

but good for them. Wow, the U.S. and Canada and the women's world championships, that never happens. Almost didn't get it. Chuchio gave the U.S. a real game in the semifinal. But, yeah, you kind of figured it was. It's just one of those things where I just kind of expected that's how it's going to go. One of those teams is going to win, one of those teams is going to lose, and I go, yeah, it makes sense to me.

Thanks. Okay, we'll see you next year. I don't know what to tell you, you know. But, yeah, the hockey's always good in the gold medal game and all that kind of thing. So it's all you can really ask for until the rest of the world catches up. Yep. And then one last thing. We'll go out on a really high note.

The hockey candidate trial starts at today. Am I right about this? Yeah, jury selection in that. Jury selection is today. All we'll say about this is we will. cover it when there's news and when there's not news and there's just

you know speculation and this and that we will stay away from it and let the people who are well if there's no news what is there to talk about yeah you know well I mean

it's it's tough because we certainly don't want to ignore it no that right and it's not going on but also uh this this is not a place for, you know, hot takes, let's just say.

Follow Katie, follow Rick Westhead, who I saw it today, I think is actually in London for the duration of the trial. Makes sense. Those are your sources for good information. And then we see there was a story that came out last week that some players could be called to testify who are currently active in the playoffs. but that would likely be done virtually so it wouldn't have an impact on their availability.

But we'll see. This is going to be a huge story, but it's one that like I say, we're not going to sit around and act like it's some hockey game we can just break down the ups and downs of. That's right. All right, why don't you hit them with the plugs and let's get out of here? Find me at the athletic, including my podcast with other Sean and Frankie Corrado, which will be tomorrow. We also have the new newsletter launched last week. I had my first solo one on Sunday night. So if you missed it, screw you.

You're part of the problem. You can find on my socials and that. I've occasionally been sending out the link. It's very simple if you're an athletic. subscriber, you just literally hit the page and they will put you on the list and you'll get content for me and James Myrtle a couple times a week. Cool. And then for me, Elite Prospects, I just had an article breaking down the coaching changes and all that.

Last week I did my official ranking of how cool it would, or which teams would be the coolest if they won from 16 to 1. and, you know, continuing playoff coverage for me throughout the remainder of this postseason. And that's it, I think. Oh, and of course, we just put out our, I believe, what will be our final draft ranking before the draft guide. So head on over there. Now's the time to get caught up on all the prospect-y stuff. And it's right in the title for a reason.

We do it really, really well over there. And again, I say we. I don't have anything to do with that. So they do it really well. And I just get to have people go, oh, wow, you work for elite prospects. That's really cool. And I'm like, yeah, I know all the stuff that you would think I know. So.

And then Patreon.com slash Puck Soup, all kinds of bonus episodes in the last few weeks, including one where Greg issues. I'm sure you saw some of this, Sean. the insane take that it's good that kids go ape shit for the Minecraft movie and make a huge mess. So you can

over the weekend I got to hang out my 10 year old cousin who got to experience that with his mom who did not know what was going to happen. Oh no. And I mean it's have you ever talked to somebody

about the greatest moment of their life? I mean this This kid was just like, dude, they were throwing popcorn. It was wild. There are some little girls like, you know, third, I'd say between kindergarten and third grade who live on our street. And they're always out playing in the front yard or whatever when I'm walking the dog. And I just heard them saying to each other chicken jockey and laughing. Like, honestly, if you just saying it, they weren't, they weren't like.

anyone 17 and under and there's any lullet, just say chicken jockey. You're going to get a pop, like you wouldn't fucking believe. Yeah. So, yeah. So you can hear that bonus episode. You can hear an upcoming listener choice bonus episode with me, Sean and Greg.

All kinds of crazy stuff going on over there. Check it out. Patreon.com slash puck soup. $5 gets you in the door. $8 gets you all the bonus episodes and not just the me and Sean and sometimes Greg ones. So check it all out.

And me and Sean are just going to go over there and record a mailbag right now. So we'll see you over there. And if not, we'll talk to you next week. Have a good one. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.